The present invention relates to food products and to methods of their preparation. More particularly, the present invention relates to dried foods infused with inulin especially vegetables and to their methods of preparation.
The present invention provides further improvements into dried infused foods especially vegetables.
Drying wet foods such as fruits vegetables and meats for preservation has been practiced from ancient times. In modem technical terms, such products are dried to water activity values (“Aw”) such s below 0.5 in order to provide dried fruits that are shelf stable at room temperatures. Dried fruits are commonly added to dry packaged food products such as dry mixes for layer cakes, muffins or pancakes, to trail mixes comprising mixtures of nuts, cereal pieces, to granola or cereal bars, and especially to Ready-To-Eat (“RTE”) cereal products such as corn or wheat flakes. Bran flakes with raisins are well known.
However, such packaged food products are typically dry products having very low water activity values. RTE cereals, for example, often have water activity values of 0.2 or lower. It is a well known problem that moisture equilibration over time in dry packaged food products with added dried fruits dried to only a 0.5 water activity level can involve moisture transfer from the less dry fruit to the more dry food products. This moisture migration tends to further dry and thereby toughen the fruit, even those that are sugar infused. Also, the moisture increase in the packaged food can lead to its loss of freshness or crispness. In severe case, mold or other decay can occur.
To overcome such moisture migration problems, dried fruits can be dried more to equivalent moisture activity values. However, drying fruits to very low water levels indicated by low water activity values, e.g., below 0.3, to avoid moisture equilibration with dried cereal generally result in such dried fruits being extremely tough and leathery and thus difficult to consume.
In another approach to drying to low water activity values and/or to moderate the problems of fruit moisture loss and food product moisture gain, dried fruits have been infused with sugars and to provide sugar infused dried fruits.
Of coarse, infusing sugars such as honey into fruits, e.g., dates, prior to drying has been practiced from ancient times to lower the water activity while providing dried fruit products that are softer in texture. More recently, refined sugars such as sucrose, fructose and dextrose or corn syrups have been used to infuse dried fruits. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,542,033 “Sugar and Acid Infused Fruit Products and Processes Therefor” issued Sep. 17, 1985 to Agarwala)
In variations dried infused fruit products has often involved fortifying the infusion solution with a humectant such as a polyhydric alcohol, usually glycerol, to improve the texture properties of such infused dried fruits.
While sugar and/or glycerin infused dried fruit products are well known and commonly added to dried food products such as RTE cereals, such products are not without longstanding problems. For example, some consumers find such sugar infused fruits excessively sweet. Also, many consumers are sensitive to the taste of glycerol and complain of bitterness at higher glycerin levels.
Infusion methods generally involve steeping the fruit in concentrated infusion solutions over time often at elevated or boiling conditions and thereafter drying the infused fruits. Much effort has been directed at decreasing the infusion or drying times, minimizing the waste or degradation of the spent infusion solution, the overall complexity and cost of drying and infusion operations as well as improving the texture or eating qualities of the infused fruit.
While fresh and dried fruit products provide high levels of nutrition and consumers are often recommended to increase their consumption of fresh fruit, neither fresh fruits nor dried fruits are excellent sources of fiber.
Thus, there is a continuing need for new and improved infused dried food products especially fruit that can be dried to water activity levels compatible with dry packaged food items that are not excessively tough, sweet nor burdened with the taste of conventional humectants as well as their methods of preparation.
Thus, there is a continuing need for new and improved products that provide high levels of nutritionally desirable fiber and that provide desirable eating qualities.
Surprisingly, the present invention provides improvements in the provision of infused dried food products such as fruits by selecting inulin of a particular molecular weight, an oligosacharide, for infusion into fruits and drying to desired moisture levels. More surprisingly, such inulin infused dried food products are characterized by increased levels of fiber of a remarkable palatability. Such inulin infused dried fruits find particular suitability for use for addition to low water activity dry packaged food products such as RTE cereals. Also, methods for preparing such inulin infused dried fruit products are commercially practical and can employ commonly available apparatus and techniques.
More surprisingly, combining inulin infused dry fruit provides a convenient technique for increasing the fiber level of common food products that consumers expect to comprise dried fruits especially Ready-to-eat cereals.
Formulating ready to eat cereal products with inulin as well as topical application of inulin to a cereal coating is know (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,965 “Cereal Products With Inulin And Methods Of Preparation” issued Nov. 21, 2000 to Larson). However, such fortification is not without difficulties. Addition of inulin to a cooked cereal dough from which dried ready-to-eat cereal products are fabricated can result in a cereal dough that is sticky and difficult to process in commercial cereal product manufacturing. Topical addition of inulin to RTE cereal products can result is a coated cereal that is hygroscopic. Surprisingly, providing inulin infused dried fruit provides a convenient technique for providing high levels of fiber in an RTE cereal that minimizes the dough handling and hygroscopic problems of inulin addition to RTE cereals. The properties of the non or limited inulin bearing cereal base can remain unchanged. Also, by adding the inulin as part of a blended component to cereal base rather than in the cereal base, the manufacturing problems associated with handling a high inulin level cooked cereal dough can be minimized.